Estimation of the noise generated by the random impacts on a thin plate

When one rides a car on a gravel road, a noise due to collision of gravels rolled up by tires makes him uncomfortable. The collisions are assumed as random impacts with respect to mass, collision time, position, velocity, angle and so on. In order to probabilistically estimate the noise, the time history of impact force in the case where a force sensor on a rigid pendulum hits a peripherally clamped thin rectangular plate is precisely measured for various impact speeds, angles and positions. The vibration response and sound pressure radiating from the plate are then estimated with the measured impact forces based on RayleighRitz method and impulse response method. It was then revealed that the time history of impact force could be represented with a certain time function for any impact speeds, angles and positions and that the component of the impact force perpendicular to the plate determined the maximum of the impact force. The time history of impact force can also be approximated as a superposition of the extreme function and Gaussian function. The estimated vibration acceleration of the plate and sound pressure agree very well the measured values. The noise generated by random impacts was estimated probabilistically. It was found that the noise strongly depends on the natural vibration modes of the plate.